Earliest pottery in Eurasia continent

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the latest information about the beginnings of the technology of pottery making in the area of the forest-steppe belt in Siberia and the Russian part of Eastern Europe all the way to the Ural Mountains. From a continental point of view, a brief spatiotemporal diagram presents a completely different background of the beginnings of pottery in our lands and also in corresponding parts of Southeast Europe, where the origin of pottery has traditionally been linked to the Neolithisation of Europe. The earliest pottery technology in China dates back to 20 000 BP, followed by all the subsequent data from the Far East area to Lake Baikal. The earliest pottery culture, Jomon, which had been developing in Japan for more than ten thousand years, is not included here. In the Russian part of Eastern Europe, pottery technology starts developing only after 8 000 BP. Typologically uniform and mostly unchangeable development of beaker-shaped pottery, mostly with a pointed bottom, is common for both these areas. This development continues in Scandinavia and adjacent areas of the Baltic and in Atlantic Europe. In the central parts of Europe, similar shapes only occur sporadically in the earliest period. However, the earliest Eurasian pottery had influenced the development of later prehistoric periods. Numerous settlement groups on the Eurasian continents were characterised by two traditions that are archaeologically recognisable. In simple terms, one of the traditions was agricultural, the other conservative.